Trending This Week: East/West Bowl is Back; A New Danish Action Hero is Crowned

Here's a rundown of the videos that bubbled to the top of our trending chart this week (and for more, check out this lovely playlist):

 Key & Peele - East/West Bowl 3 - Pro Edition


Leave it to Key & Peele to get even this noobiest of football fans amped up for Super Bowl Sunday! In their latest installment of sports segment parodies, the comedy duo take a moment to introduce some new "flamboyant personalities" to the lineup for the fictitious East/West Bowl - (...including some players that are actually quite real). Since its posting on Wednesday, the video has received over 3.7m views, 1.8m+ of which were clocked within its first 24 hours online.

 Lars Andersen: a new level of archery


Have you ever seen a real-life person stop, grab and re-shoot a real-life arrow mid-air (all in one 360 degree spin!?)? Neither had we until this extraordinary video came across our desks: "Lars Andersen: a new level of archery" presents one of the most talented archers alive today (Lars) demonstrating a plethora of elaborate tricks and skills that will challenge everything you thought you knew about bowmanship. The compilation video is meant to, as Lars puts it, "prove Hollywood archery is not historical" - which it does handily. But perhaps more significantly, it shows that appreciation for the ancient sport (art?) is far from dead, the video receiving close to 23m views within its first week.

Women's Ideal Body Types Throughout History

Following the success of newcomer channel Cut's 100 Years of Beauty series, Buzzfeed released their take on beauty through the ages on Monday, shining a light on the "ideal" female form from 1292 BC to present day. The video (9.5m views and climbing) features women of all shapes, sizes and ethnicities, relaying the age old message of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" in a snackable, poppy format BuzzFeedVideo has appeared to have mastered (the channel has garnered a whopping 4.5m+ subscribers, and 1.8b+ views to date).

 Auschwitz: Drone video of Nazi concentration camp

 And finally, this week marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, also known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27). Auschwitz was the largest network of concentration camps established during WWII, in which more than a million people died between 1940-45. BBC News brought attention to this somber day (and dismal period in history) with a moving two and half minute video of sweeping, never before seen footage of the ruins of Auschwitz, captured by drone. The haunting video became BBC News's top YouTube video of all time, amassing nearly 3.9m views in four days.

-- Christine Huang

Trending This Week: Lips - Dubbed, Read, and Green

Trending this week: an all star face-off, an all star interview, lip dubs in unexpected places, and lip reads that'll make you chortle. Dive in below!

"NFL 2015" — A Bad Lip Reading of The NFL 



Just shy of four years since their first entrée into the genre (“Gang Fight” - to the tune of Rebecca Black’s “Friday”), the anonymous creators behind Bad Lip Reading, or BLR (4.1m subscribers) are back with another smash hit, “‘NFL 2015’ - A Bad Lip Reading of The NFL.” Only 1 day since its posting, this long-awaited addition to the NFL BLR oeuvre is proving to be one of the channel’s fastest growing yet, already having garnered a very un-deflated 9.5m+ views and rising.


Dover Police DashCam Confessional (Shake it Off)



 File this under “Unexpectedly Adorbable Caught-on-Dashcams”: last Friday, the internet was treated to a very intimate, very special lip-dub of “Shake it Off” by one Master Cpl. Jeff Davis of the Dover Police in Delaware. Davis, known around the station for his goofball tendencies, became an overnight sensation after the Dover Police posted (staged) dashcam footage of him grooving to the infectious, oh-so-dubbable Taylor Swift hit on their YouTube channel - an effort to show the lighter, friendlier side of their law enforcement officers. The video has racked up 22.4m+ views since its posting a week ago, ~7.3m of which were received in one day, January 17.

(And if you were wondering, yes - Taylor has seen it, and she approves.)

Fallout vs Skyrim



Three days ago, two heroes from two of the biggest RPGs clashed in a fantasy face off that threw videogame fanatics into a tizzy. “Fallout vs Skyrim” is a 3 minute mashup that pits two of the most well-known protagonists in the videogame arena against one another in a violent battle to the death. The young creator, AndrewMfilms (aka Andrew McMurry), gained recognition last year with his “Mario vs Minecraft” mashup (12m+ views), a creative imagining of two classic game worlds merged into one. Andrew now broadcasts to over 408k subscribers, as "Fallout vs Skyrim" moves quickly towards more than 2m views.

 The YouTube Interview with President Obama


And what better way to close out the week than with a lil’ Presidential chat! Yesterday at 5pm ET, YouTube allstars Hank Green (~2.4m subs), GloZell Green (~3.3m subs), and Bethany Mota (~8.1m subs) made history as the first YouTube creators to interview President Barack Obama live, face-to-face at the White House - livestreamed to viewers around the world. The 46-minute interview, hosted by Google’s News Lab’s Steve Grove, became a top trending topic on Twitter and, perhaps most importantly, resulted in the best ussie in the history of ussies. Thank you, President Obama!

-- Christine Huang

Letter from the UK: John Green Is a Football Fan?

John Green is many things: a Vlogbrother, the author of "The Fault In Our Stars" and "Paper Towns", and part of the driving force behind YouTube conference VidCon. But in addition to these he is also a dedicated football fan, funneling revenue from the Hankgames channel into the groundbreaking AFC Wimbledon club to secure shirt (and now shorts) sponsorship.



However, John is also a passionate fan of  Liverpool FC, and so found his allegiances tested when the teams drew each other in the FA Cup. His vlog of the trip to London for the fixture is a must-see, as are highlights of the game itself (which include a fantastic free kick from Steven Gerrard). 

John isn't the only football fan choosing to capture his love of the game to share on YouTube, as the past few seasons have seen fan channels and content springing up and finding success. The Redmen TV has tracked the highs and lows of following Liverpool since 2010, Arsenal Fan TV has done likewise for the North London club (striking gold earlier this season when fellow fans clashed after a loss) and the Manchester United-backing Full Time Devils, whose post-match interviews have turned vocal fan Andy Tate into a YouTube and Vine star. This season has also seen The True Geordie get into his stride, documenting his reactions to Newcastle United's volatile Premiership run, picking up over 60,000 subscribers in the process -- six times the following of the club's official channel. 



Life as a fan is also given a more traditional documentary treatment from football specialists Copa 90, who travelled to Seattle to capture the commitment of the Sounders' ultras, attended the most ferocious fixtures across Europe with the Derby Days series and sent Football Virgin Maya Jama on a personal quest to both learn about the game and find her team. 
So there you have it: it's a great time to be a football fan on YouTube, so go join the conversation with fans (and rivals) of your team voicing their passion on the platform. You could even become 'internet famous' in the process... 

Jamie Dolling, YouTube UK, recently watched "Nike Academy: Winter Training".